this is on the supposition that the population exactly doubles in the period of one generation. But our population is found to increase much faster. It doubles in less than twenty-four years, and has done so from the beginning; so that, in fact, the number of the living far very far exceeds the whole mighty congregation of the dead. As long as the same rate of increase shall continue,- and nothing has hitherto checked it,—this will always be so; and the child that opens its eyes to the light this day, and lives to see old age, will close them on an empire of one hundred and seventy millions of people. Should our institutions, therefore, be henceforth successfully administered, it will no longer be objected that the population is too small for a satis factory experiment.”

FRANKLIN DEXTER.

JULY 4, 1819. FOR THE TOWN AUTHORITIES.

"THE colonists became independent," says Mr. Dexter, "because they had always been free; for it is only by the long enjoyment of liberty that men could be formed,—for a contest of liberty was their ruling passion; and, though they disclaimed any wish to be independent until they solemnly declared themselves so, they were always actuated by a spirit that could not leave them long dependent on a foreign power. It was a clear understanding of the principles of civil liberty, and an ardent attachment to it, that were the sole and consistent causes of the Revolution. Not the mere impatience of oppression that sometimes wakes even a degraded people to resistance, to avenge their wrongs, rather than to assert their rights, which groans and struggles in confinement, till there is no longer anything to be lost, and then breaks out in violence and uproar,- not to change the government, but to annihilate it; not to redress the evils of society, but to sweep away society itself. We have seen such a revolution, and we may be proud that ours had nothing in common with it. We have seen a great nation shaken to its foundations, and bursting like a volcano, only to shower down destruction itself,— leaving its colossal form dark, bare and blasted, with no grandeur but its terrors. Such was not our Revolution; but, like the fire in our own forests, not scattered

by the hand of accident or fury, but deliberately to the root of the growth of ages, which tottered and fell before it, only that from its ashes might rise a new creation, when all was green and fair and flourishing. The world has learned, by these experiments, that civil liberty is not a mushroom, that grows up in a night from the fallen, rotten trunk of despotism; but a hardy plant, that strikes deep, in a sound soil, and slowly gathers strength with years, till oppression withers in its shadow. Our present situation is a living proof of the difference of the two events. Liberty never yet was the work of an outraged and incensed populace, as well might a whirlwind plant a paradise!"

Franklin Dexter was born in Charlestown, and was son of Samuel Dexter, the profound civilian and famous orator, of whom Callender unjustly said that "he has a great deal of that kind of eloquence which struts around the heart, without ever entering it,"—and was a warm advocate of the war with Great Britain. Samuel Dexter and Theophilus Parsons were at one time against each other in the court at Dedham. Rufus Green Amory had hunted up all the authorities, and placed a mark at each. Mr. Dexter requested his attorney to take a seat beside him, and hand the authorities as he wished them, which afforded the best possible opportunity of hearing every word that escaped the lips of that great man. Placing one foot upon a chair, and folding his arms across his breast, Mr. Dexter began; and such a stream of reasoning, without noise and without effort, as he poured out for four hours, one never heard before; it was like pouring water from a flask. Parsons made several attempts to interrupt him. At last, Mr. Dexter turned to him and said: "Mr. Parsons, if you have an overflow of wit, have the goodness to reserve it for the close; you have already driven several ideas out of my head." The Chief Justice, Dana, remarked, "Never mind, Mr. Dexter; if he should deprive you of as many more, you would still have enough left for Mr. Parsons." Mr. Dexter was accustomed to pursue his studies in the evening, without the use of a lamp, often till towards eleven o'clock; and so absorbed was his mind that he would quit his office without locking the door, and his landlord, the bookseller on the lower floor, often found it necessary to wait until Mr. Dexter left the office, in order to make it secure for the night. Samuel Dexter is said to have written a condensed analysis of the evidences of Christianity, which is one of the most conclusive arguments ever written by a civilian.

Franklin Dexter graduated at Harvard College in 1812, on which occasion he took part in the discussion, whether extensiveness of territory be favorable to the preservation of a republican government. He is a counsellor-at-law, and married Catharine Elizabeth, a daughter of Hon. William Prescott. He was a member of the city Council in 1825; was commander of the New England Guards, a representative and senator in the State Legislature, and the United States District Attorney for Massachusetts.

When, in July, 1841, the venerable Judge Davis resigned the judicial station, Mr. Dexter was requested, by the members of the Suffolk bar, to make known to him their high sense of respect and veneration; and he performed the duty with felicitous grace, in highly effective terms. "It can rarely happen," said he, "that a judge who is called upon to decide so many delicate and important questions of property and personal right should have so entirely escaped all imputation of prejudice or passion, and should have found so general an acquiescence in his results. Our filial respect and affection for yourself have constantly increased with increasing years; and, while we acknowledge your right to seek the repose of private life, we feel that your retirement is, not less than it ever would have been, a loss to the profession and the public. May you live long and happily,— as long as life shall continue to be a blessing to you, and so long will that life be a blessing to your friends and society."

Mr. Dexter has been an eminent pleader at the bar; and the ingenuity with which he contended against the searching Webster, in the trial of the Knapps for the murder of White, is in the memory of many. Possessing brilliant talents and strong reasoning powers, Mr. Dexter would have risen to elevated public life, had he not retired to the enjoyment of literary ease. The beautiful criticism on landscape painting, from his polished hand, extending through thirty-five pages of the North American Review, in which he discerns no reason why painters should not arise in our day to surpass all that was effected by Claude, Gaspar, or Salvator, and expresses the decided opinion that he has seen no landscapes painted since the days of Titian superior to those of Allston, indicate him to be as tasteful in the fine arts as he has been profound in legal learning. We are of opinion that we neither overstate, nor exaggerate, in the remark that Mr. Dexter has been one of the most acute, logical reasoners at the Suffolk bar, and but few competitors felt safe in an argument with him.

SAMUEL ADAMS WELLS.

JULY 4, 1819. FOR THE WASHINGTON SOCIETY.

WAS a son of Thomas Wells, who married Hannah, daughter of Gov. Samuel Adams. He was president of the Atlas Insurance Company, and married Margaret Gibbs. Mr. Wells was a tenacious advocate of the Democratic party, and prepared Memoirs of the Life and Correspondence of Gov. Samuel Adams, his grandfather, comprising three volumes in manuscript, which it is said were disposed of to George Bancroft, the historian. This is to be regarded as a public calamity, unless the purchaser should cause it to be printed. Whitcomb said of our American Cato,

Mr. Wells was the corresponding secretary of the Republican Institution, originated at the dwelling-house of Mr. Ebenezer Clough, Nov. 16, 1818. Gen. Henry Dearborn was its first president. Its annual meetings occur on the 4th of March. It was incorporated Feb. 18, 1819. The late Hon. James Lloyd founded a political library for this important engine of the party.

In 1820, Mr. Wells was a delegate to the Massachusetts convention for revising the State constitution, and engaged in public debate. At the town-meeting in Faneuil Hall, Jan 2, 1822, on the subject of a city charter of Boston, Mr. Wells moved that the word city be stricken out, and the word town be inserted, as a substitute. He died Aug. 12, 1840.

THEODORE LYMAN.

JULY 4, 1820. FOR THE TOWN AUTHORITIES.

Was born in Boston, Feb. 22, 1792. Rev. Joseph S. Buckminster was his private teacher, at Waltham; entered Exeter Academy in 1804; was a graduate at Harvard College in 1810, became a mer

chant, and married Mary E. Henderson in 1820, by whom he had Theodore and Cora. He was a representative in 1825, and in 1824 a senator, in the State Legislature. He engaged in military life; was, in 1821, the lieutenant of the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company, an aid-de-camp to Gov. Brooks, and brigadier-general of the Boston militia. He was Mayor of Boston in 1834 and '35, a period in the history of the city stained by the spirit of insubordination, and the dark hues of intolerance. This will ever be remembered as the time when the disgraceful Garrison riot, and the destruction of the Ursuline Convent, disturbed the peace of the old metropolis of the Bay State. Gen. Lyman was the author of Diplomacy of the United States with Foreign Nations, 2 vols. 8vo., 1826; The Political State of Italy, 8vo., 1820; Three Weeks in Paris, the result of his visit to France; and an account of the Hartford Convention, addressed to the fair-minded and well-disposed, favoring the motives of that body, published in 1823. He was president of the Prison Discipline Society; was president of the Farm School three years, and a member of the Massachusetts Historical and the New England Genealogic Historical societies.

Our own city of Boston has never been honored with a more munificent native citizen than was Mayor Lyman, for the last half-century; besides his private charities to the suffering children of abject poverty. It was said of Lyman,

"He is gracious if he be observed;

He hath a tear for pity, and a hand
Open as day for melting charity."

Mayor Lyman, on the foundation of the State Reform School, at Westboro', which he originated, was the secret donor of twenty-two thousand dollars to this institution,- a secret not publicly disclosed until after his decease; and by his last will he bequeathed fifty thousand dollars to the same institution, in addition to his previous gifts. He bequeathed ten thousand dollars to the Boston Farm School, which had previously received his gifts, and ten thousand dollars to the Massachusetts Horticultural Society. He died at Brookline, July 17, 1849.